Access Frame: Property

Democratization potential of online distribution of music has disrupted the landscape of music industry. While life is moving into information networks and capital and desire for profit are creating unregulated attention economies, an artist is able to create her own production, distribution and communication channels. By using Creative Commons licenses she ensures that the listeners and users are not criminalized for sharing. “Some rights reserved” also supports the idea that without free culture we are doomed to corporatization and control of all culture and art. The commons might cease to exist. Perhaps the role of the netlabel in the neo-liberal late-capitalist landscape is to help with curation, filtering, distribution, promotion and communication of unfettered and uncompromising artistic sonic output and making sure it is properly archived for future generations. A netlabel, an entity that is objectively external, allows the author to be critical about her work, while making sure that her work is published, shared, heard and archived.

With all that in mind Kamizdat is joining the celebration of low-barier D.I.Y. music publishing revolution, the annual celebration day called The Netlabel Day on 14. July.

The title of this collection of Slovenian artists refers to an idea that the debate around free, libre and open access enabled almost costlessly by the Internet is framed by the understanding of the concept of property. This seems almost an historical point, a disruption that has marked almost two decades since the appearance of the MP3, but we believe it is still one of main roots of the many problems regarding online culture and art today.